Alexander the Great and the Hellenistic World

Pierre Jouguet

[1]
"The mythical imagination was always fertile in Greece, and it would have found Greek ancestors for the Macedonian people as easily as it had done for the royal line" [p.70]

[2]
"Except for the Macedonian kingdom, the Hellenistic monarchies were not national" [p.173]

[3]
Speaking of Eumenes:
"He knew from experience that in the eyes of the Macedonians he was still a Greek, a foreigner. Plutarch praised his charming and refined manners, which were very unlike the haughty airs of the noble Macedonian officer." [p.142]

[4]
More on Eumenes:
"But he was not a Macedonian, and the Macedonians did not look upon him as an equal. This may have been one reason for his tenacious loyalty to the cause of the Kings; his fortune was bound up with the Empire, and in the case of a partition he would not have received the support of the Macedonian troops in securing a portion for himself." [p.129]

[5]
On Isocrates:
"At the end of his speech, Isocrates, summarizing the programme which he was proposing to Philip, advised him to be a benefactor to the Greeks, a king to the Macedonians, and to the barbarians not a master, but a chief." [p.106]

[6]
On stationing garrison in Greek cities
"To endure and maintain a royal garrison must have been, for a city, one of the most certain signs of servitude. As a rule, except in the cases of strategical necessity, Alexander seems to have abstained as much as possible from inflicting the presence of his soldiers and the duty of maintaining them on Greek cities." [p.87]

[7]
"Between Macedonia, Greece, and Asia, the three worlds which made up the Empire, union was maintained by the power of the King." [p.74]

[8]
[On Greece's role with Antalcidas Treaty, versus that of the King of Macedon]
"So Greece was in a peculiar situation. It was not properly incorporated in the Empire. It was attached to it by a treaty of alliance which consecrated the hegemony of one ally, without injuring the autonomy of the states. It was directed rather than ruled. But it did not resign itself readily to this secondary role, or to the menace which was always suspended over its liberties. And, indeed, while it was to be feared that Alexander could not be content with this hazardous limited authority, it might also be foreseen that the most serious obstacles to the accomplishments of his designs would come from Greece." [p.71]

[9]
"Athens accepted the terms of the Confederation of Corinth, because Alexander had required only a moderate effort of the allies, and had demanded only a few ships from herself. The Empire to which he aspired was to be made chiefly by Macedonians, and for the King of Macedon." [p.70]


[10]
[After Chaeronea]
"But there were more serious difficulties- the resentment of those defeated at Chaeronea, the political selfishness of each city, the historical past, binding the great states to their traditions, and an invincible repugnance for accepting national unity imposed by a foreign sovereign." [p.70]

[11]
[On Macedonian ethnicity]
So little do the Macedonians seem to have belonged to the Hellenic community at the beginning, that they did not take part in the great Games of Greece, and when the Kings of Macedon were admitted to them, it was not as Macedonians, but as Heraclids. Isocrates, in the 'Philip' praises them for not having imposed their kingship on the Hellenes, to whom the kingship is always oppressive, and for having gone among foreigners to establish it. He, therefore, did not regard the Macedonians as Greeks." [p.68]

[12]
[On the membership in the Delphic Amphictiony]
"So, too, when, after the Sacred War, Philip obtained a voice in the Delphic Amphictiony, it was given to the King, not to the people of Macedonia." [p.68]

[13]
[On Macedonians and Greeks]
"It is sufficient for our purposes to note that the Hellenes and the Macedonians regarded themselves as different nations, and this feeling did not ceased to be the source of great difficulties for the union of Greece under Macedonian rule. When the union was achieved, it was only by policy of force." [p.68]

[14]
[On Macedonian Empire and Alexander]
"The architect was a King of Macedon, and he never forgot his origin, even when, after he had accumulated many crowns, his suspicious comrades accused him of denying it. Alexander always wore the insignias of his national kingship -- the purple cloak, the Kausia, or great hat adorned with purple, and the Macedonian boots. With the insignia, he retained to the end of his life the simple, free manners of his forbears." [p.62]

[15]
[On the Macedonian conquest]
"It was quite certain that Alexander would not be content. He had called himself the avenger of Greece, and had begun the war in the capacity of Strategos of all the Hellenes, but he meant the war chiefly to serve the greatness of Macedonia. That is why there were so few Greeks in the army, which was mainly Macedonian; the Macedonians alone were sufficiently attached to the royal house of their country to follow Alexander in an undertaking for which Asia Minor was already too small a prize." [p.20]

[16]
[On Macedonia and its neighbors]
"Alexander had left Antipatros 12,000 foot and 1,500 horse, to protect Macedonia and to watch Greece." [p.9]